After a long time (=years) of development, my hobby game "The Terminal Angel Disease" is approaching the release deadline It is a typical 2D RPG with elements of hack'n'slay, story-driven, item looting, and a sack of self irony.

BackgroundI developed this game initially starting from 1998 in an obscure language called "Visual Basic" and released it in 2005 in Germany only. I was finishing university at that time, and after spending years with the game I lost interest in pushing it further once it was released. I continued working as a full time pro web developer, architect and team leader for customers. Missing the pure coding in those positions, I re-wrote the game in Java as a hobby project. 95% of the stuff is untouched: graphics (I introduced new tree graphics), gameplay, design. It was then and now a lot of work and I decided too re-release it again!The game is inspired by mid-90 games. Today, games tend to be short and accessible, and my game is nothing like that Fights are frequent and hard - most people complain about that. But puzzles are fair, and NPCs are friendly

StoryIn an former RPG city (used a long time ago for real RPG games), everybody is unempoyed, since their graphics went out of style. All monsters have been beaten, all heroes became lazy and fat. Suddenly, new monsters roam the city, and our party are the only ones who can move around (because they're controlled by you, the player). It seems the guardian angels - the so-called "scripts" - have been been kidnapped! And so we drink up our cappucino and start the adventure...

Technique (this we can discuss here in detail * The game runs on Java, obviousley, without any support from a 3rd party framework. Everything is programmed using Java2d/Swing, and a custom game framework using BufferedImages. Why? Because it is foremost a fun, coding project, and creating frameworks is a lot of fun * The map structure is a 99x99 array of tiles. Tiles have a 40x40 pixel ground iamge, and optional an item and overlay image. * There are 20 maps in the game, with half of them have unique graphics. * Events, like puzzles, talks, shops, and fights are also placed on the tiles. I hade a really nice editor for evreything abck then! * When fighting baddies, the fight screen appears with a semi-real-time fight modus.

What's next?I'm working on a demo! I already bought chocolate to handle the critics, and then I'll see how much of the input I can incorporate into the game. The final release is scheduled after summer (i want to spend *some* of the summer time outside!) After that - depending on if at least some people like it - a complete remake is planned

VideoSo enough talk, let's watch a video. This is raw, compiled footage of representive scenes of the game and shows the basic things to do: walking, fighting, looting!

I like most of the art, when considered individualy, but none of it fits together. The chair is isometric, but the character is not. Also, the varying levels of detail in thr images make it look un-unified (If thats a word?).

Yes, I worked on a demo version of the game! The first 5 maps are included - and even the intro! There is no manual yet, so please check the help screen via "F1". Most of the controls can be found out I hope. And pleeeease save early, save often

I played the demo for maybe an hour. I think it's quite charming in it's very own, somewhat strange style. I like it. However, i do have some issues, mainly with the controls:

Keyboard movement seems to rely on key pressed events, which leads to jerky movement if one hasn't tuned the system's key repeat delay. It would be better to use key up/down events and just set some flags accordingly instead.

The usage of the right mouse button to collect things and to move them around in the inventory is counterintuitive to me. If you want to keep that for whatever reason, please add at least the option to use the left mouse button to read the item descriptions (in game and in the inventory). The way it is now, the left mouse button has no function on items, but i'm still forced to use the right one instead.

If you hit a wall or another obstacle, the character plays some animation and i have to wait for it to finish before i can move again. That, combined with the jerky movement, is quite annoying.

I'm missing a "take all" button when opening chests and stuff.

I'm missing a quest log. I remember that i'm supposed to visit the wise guys, but i can't remember where to find them.

I did! Now i'm supposed to find some guy called RingRing or similar. But again, i've no idea where to find him. I'm not asking for quest makers, but a little quest log and some additional description like "you'll find him east of the town hall" or whatever would be helpful. One very minor issue that i noticed: The combat window has a close icon, but it doesn't seem to do anything.

Hello again!Summer is over, I am still working on this project I included most of the suggestions by EgonOlsen, especially the key movement thingy works now even better also for myself, thanks And here a screenshot to get an idea of the new Quest Log. Whenever you get a new quest (mainly while talking to NPCs), the golden Quest Chicken on the top quacks. If you solve a quest, it sparkles and you get some coins. A new Demo is coming soon

Ja, it's true, the last post was a really long time ago... but I'm still working on finetuning and bugs - and the Outro - a sign that the game is almost finished, no!?

I'm targeting the release to take place in the midth/end of May (this year). I want to finish it finally before going totally crazy (and have also tons of ideas for a sequel) btw... i'm currently checking distribution options via Steam, GOG, etc.

So to the screenshot: What happend? Why are Owsed and Nowsed still hungry at the end of the game? Find out soon!

And I made an exclusive extra for the Java-Gaming Community: an animated gif (I changed the animations a bit - still everything is pure Swing, I'm also planning to release the source code after publishing).http://i.imgur.com/Do6K7ku.gif

Yeaah Fighting. EvilToday I'd like to present the combat system. Maybe in previous screenshots, you noticed the pink steam clouds. These indicate that there is trouble around. Once the party gets near them, the combat screens appears. Each of the four party members can attack the monsters, causing an "out of puff" state. The duration depends on the fitness and the type of attack. There are special attacks, for instance the Detective can try to "arrest", causing the monster to disappear immediately. You can always use items out of your "power-belt", like sweets, bombs, or magic. Tipp: if the monsters are "attacked", they can not fight back for a short time.

And because it's the java gaming board, here is a preview how it is implemented:

First release the game, then release the source code Stay tuned, Mathias

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